DO NOT REMOVE: Navigation Content Holder

You are here

Austin: Angelina Eberly Statue

At Sixth and Congress in downtown Austin, a statue stands at the very spot where one audacious citizen became the heroine of Texas’s famous “Archive War.” In 1842 Texas Republic president Sam Houston campaigned to move the state capital from Austin to Houston. When Austin’s citizens resisted, Houston sent Texas Rangers to steal Austin’s government archives!

They would have succeeded… were it not for innkeeper Angelina Eberly, who – hearing the rangers loading their wagons in the middle of the night – fired off Austin’s six-pound cannon, missing the rangers but blowing a hole in the General Land Office building. Roused from sleep by the noise, residents chased down the Rangers – and recovered the archives! The statue of Eberly, sculpted by Australian Pat Oliphant, honors her role in keeping the Capital in Austin.